Do Appraisals Make Business Asset Sales More Efficient?
Making Your Asset Sale As Easy As It Can Be
Short answer – yes! But of course, we are going to give you our long answer too! Appraisals are a key step in any asset sale or liquidation process. Hiring an appraiser to come in and evaluate your assets not only improves your chances of getting a great price for your items, but also makes the whole process easier for you as the seller! We know that the process of liquidating your business (or even just selling off a few pieces of equipment) can be a hard process, so you should do everything that you can to make the process as efficient as it can be. Why wouldn’t you want someone to come in and take some of the burden off of your shoulders? When you chose to partner with a certified appraiser, selling off your items will become a lot easier.
Appraisers Help You Get Organized
Sometimes the hardest part of an asset sale is getting started. You don’t know what you plan on selling and you don’t have any ideas of who will buy you assets once you do. The whole process can seem daunting. Luckily, working with an appraiser gives you a solid jumping off point. An appraiser will help you sit down and sort through all of your assets. You will break up your company into assets that are finished inventory, used in production, or are simply general assets (think furniture, computers, etc.). Getting started with your asset sale can take the most time, creating a big initial roadblock to get over. Hiring an appraiser will help you maneuver this obstacle with care to make your organizational process faster.
Assigning Value
Of course, this is the main job of an appraiser. After each of your assets has been organized into different categories, your appraiser will come through and work their magic. They will asses which of your items are actually worth selling, and then they will assign them their fair market value. Your appraiser will take into consideration everything that they can to determine the value of your assets. They will reference the depreciation on your balance sheet, any maintenance and repair records that are available, and view the working condition of the asset. An appraiser will also be able to take away the blinders of emotional value that you most likely add on to the true value of an asset. Taking out this sentimentality and having a completely objective point of view will provide you with a much better idea of what price you can expect to receive for your items. Because an appraiser is highly experienced and skilled, they are able to assign accurate values to your items much faster than you would be able to yourself. Thus, the appraisal process itself can move along and you can sell your assets faster!
Provide Insight for the Selling Process
While this technically isn’t part of your appraiser’s job, your appraiser may be able to offer you some tips as to how you should sell your items. They most likely have appraised items in the past that are similar to your own and might know how the other owners successfully sold them. Of course, remember that this isn’t information that they necessarily have to provide you with, their main job is to tell you how much your items are worth. If you are looking for some ideas of how you should sell your assets, we have a few recommendations:
Think about the type of assets that you have and who would be interested in buying them. If you have a lot of finished product – just offer a huge sale to your customers. Drop the prices a bit if you need to sell your assets fast and customers would most likely jump at the chance to buy your items. If you are selling off heavy machinery or equipment that the average consumer isn’t
likely to purchase, check in with other businesses in your industry. You probably know of a few companies that would love to expand their production and would be more than willing to buy up your equipment.
If neither of those sound doable for your company, or you need to sell off your assets fast, you might want to think about auctioning off your items. Auctions are a fantastic way to quickly liquidate assets that you no longer need. Auction houses (like our sister company Miedema Auctioneering) are used to selling assets for full companies and would be more than happy to partner with you in your sale. Not only are they organized and know everything about selling off unneeded assets, they often have marketing plans in place that will help promote your auction to potential bidders. Auction houses also often have large followings of loyal bidders that would most likely be very interested in your items. Plus, you can often get a higher price than you would have received in a traditional sale since bidders compete with each other for your goods. If you’re interested in conducting an auction to sell your assets contact Miedema Auctioneering here.
Appraisers will truly make selling your assets a much easier and efficient process. Their knowledge and expertise are so valuable, and you won’t believe how much stress will be taken off your shoulders when you partner up with a certified appraiser. Contact us today if you are interested in partnering with us for your business asset sale. We would love to sit down and talk about your particular appraisal needs. Click the button below to get in touch.
